Samsung is bringing One UI 6.1 to its Galaxy S21 series and foldables starting in 2021, but the company only offers Google’s Circle to Search on these older devices, while others get almost the entire Galaxy AI suite .
The Galaxy AI suite of features debuted on the Galaxy S24 series earlier this year before later expanding to the Galaxy S23, Fold 5 and Flip 5, as well as the Galaxy Tab S9 series. Samsung’s AI features include on-device translation, AI generative photo editing, and more.
This week, Samsung began rolling out its Galaxy AI features to even older devices, including the Galaxy S22, Fold 4, and Flip 4, as announced last month. And, in a slight surprise, Samsung also released One UI 6.1 for the Galaxy S21 series, Galaxy Z Flip 3, and Galaxy Z Fold 3.
These 2021 versions, however, offer a very limited taste of the Galaxy AI experience.
Galaxy S21 series and Galaxy Z Flip 3 not receiving most of it. In fact, the changelog only mentions support for Circle to Search.
The (translated) changelog follows:
One UI 6.1 brings Google’s Search with Circles feature so you can easily search for anything on your screen without switching apps. Simply press and hold the home button or navigation handle, then draw a circle around the text or image on the screen to immediately launch a Google search.
This same paragraph can be found in both the Galaxy S21 series and Galaxy Z Flip 3 changelogs, shared by Tarun tanks on Twitter/X. SamMobile claims that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 gets more AI features, but the shared changelog doesn’t say anything about AI features outside of Circle to Search.
Samsung hasn’t clearly explained why these older devices don’t get any other Galaxy AI features, but there is a reasoning. If The Galaxy Z Fold 3 actually benefits from all the same AI features as Samsung’s 2022 versions, although it runs on the same chipset as the S21 and Z Flip 3. The only difference is that the Fold 3 has of 12GB of RAM in all variants, where every other Samsung device released that year might have 8GB on lower tier models.
This is just speculation, but given the critical role RAM plays in on-device AI, it’s our best guess. The older Snapdragon 888 may simply not have the power to make up for the lack of RAM, while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 has the extra boost needed to bring these features to new generations.
It doesn’t seem out of the question that additional AI features will be available on the Galaxy S21 and these other devices, as Samsung has previously said that some cloud-based AI features could be available.
Samsung is now rolling out One UI 6.1 to its 2022 and 2021 Galaxy flagships, starting in select countries.
Learn more about Samsung:
Follow Ben: Twitter/XDiscussions and Instagram
FTC: We use automatic, revenue-generating affiliate links. More.
[ad_2]
